1. Technical Field
This invention relates to packaging, and particularly to packaging for containers of beverage. More specifically, the invention relates to trays or crates for holding containers of beverage during storage, shipment and handling, with structure on the sidewalls for machine handling, especially during de-stacking of the trays, and with unique detent means on the bottom to achieve stability when trays loaded with beverage containers are stacked, but which enable a tray to be easily removed from the stack when desired.
2. Prior Art
Beverages, e.g., beer and soft drinks, are commonly packaged in cans or bottles. These cans and bottles, especially in sizes up to about sixteen ounces, are frequently bundled in groups, e.g., six-pack cartons, for marketing to consumers. To facilitate handling, whether bundled together in pre-packaged groups or left loose, the cans and bottles are usually placed in trays holding up to twenty-four containers of beverage, depending upon the size of the containers.
Reusable molded plastic trays capable of holding twenty-four half-liter containers of beverage, e.g., four six-packs, have been developed. One prior art tray construction for half liter bottles, for example, has low depth side walls with cut-outs through which the sides of the beverage containers are visible, and a tray bottom with detent means projecting below the bottom surface of the tray for cooperative engagement with the tops of beverage containers in a sub-adjacent tray to provide stability to a stack of trays, while at the same time enabling the trays to be moved laterally with respect to one another when it is desired to remove a tray from the stack. Conventional detent means are usually curvilinear, with opposing convex and/or concave surfaces that engage the tops of beverage containers in a sub-adjacent tray. Depending upon the orientation of one tray on top of another, and the position of the beverage container tops relative to these curvilinear detent means, a ragged, intermittent resistance to movement of the tray can be encountered when it is slid laterally over the top of a lower tray.
Features are also provided in prior art trays to enable nestable stacking of empty trays without shingling or wedging together of the trays. Thus, the sidewalls of the tray may be configured to have upwardly extending tapered projections that nest into hollow cavities in the bottom of the wall of a superposed tray when trays are stacked on top of one another.
Ergonomic handle designs are also provided in prior art trays to facilitate handling of the trays, and the floors and walls of the trays are designed to maximize strength while minimizing the use of materials in the manufacture of the tray.
To minimize manual labor in the handling of trays, various machinery has been developed for automated handling. For example, de-nesting machinery has been designed for automated unstacking of empty trays. These machines have mechanisms that engage and grip outer surface portions of the trays for moving them. Conventional trays must be designed with this in mind. Thus, to facilitate use with these machines, conventional trays may have flat, vertical outer sidewall surfaces for cooperation with the gripping mechanism on the machine. In a low depth nestable tray, this requirement for machine cooperation somewhat limits the flexibility and choice of designs used in the tray, especially in the sidewall.
An example of a prior art nestable display tray or crate for bottles is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,979,654. In this patent, the sidewalls comprise lower wall portions having a continuous, flat, vertical outer surface perpendicular to the plane of the bottom of the tray, and tapered upper wall portions projecting upwardly from the lower wall portion for nesting engagement in the bottom of the hollow sidewalls of a superposed tray. Curvilinear detent means project below the tray floor to achieve stability in a stack of trays loaded with beverage containers. The side wall, itself, in this patent has a straight, vertical outer surface that can cooperate with de-stacking machinery, and the detents means projecting below the bottom of the tray has opposed concave surfaces for cooperation with the tops of beverage containers in a lower tray.
Accordingly, there is need for a beverage tray having separate means incorporated therein for cooperation with automated machinery, thereby providing greater flexibility in the design of the tray sidewalls, and which includes detent means with opposed parallel rectilinear surfaces projecting from its bottom for smooth sliding movement of the tray past the tops of beverage containers in a lower tray.